The Left is heavily invested in smearing the Koch brothers, and it’s important to understand why this is so. Gallup polls on political self-identification. Their 2014 poll shows the percentage of Democrats who self-identify as “liberal” has reached a new high of 23%. Thirty four percent self-identify as moderate, and 38% identify as “conservative.” That’s “conservative Democrats,” not Conservatives. It would be interesting to see what the difference is between conservative Democrats and Conservative Republicans, but that isn’t on offer.

Politically, the Left is heavily invested in the claim that the hated Republicans are “the party of the rich.” They deeply believe in class divisions and class warfare. Since they see themselves as the superior class, entitled to run the country, and see themselves in helping the poor by making them dependent on government. You only start hearing a lot about classes when the Democrats are in power.

If you need a shining example of “the rich” — who better than the Koch brothers who donate to Republicans, are billionaires, and make their money in petroleum that is destroying the planet because of global warming. If you doubt the effect upon the ‘sheeple’ of this example, see any article about the Koch brothers or even just prominent mention of them and in the comments you will find pure rage and hatred of the rich and capitalism personified by the Koch brothers, because they are rich.

If you look up Koch Industries in Wikipedia, you will find that it a multi-national corporation that is involved in many different things, and petroleum refining is only one part. Should you look a little deeper, you would find that they are Libertarians, not Republicans, and donate generously to all sorts of charities that benefit ordinary people.

Should you not focus on the Koch brothers, you might notice the vast number of billionaires who donate to Democrats, and the numbers of millionaires in Congress who have never done anything but politics, and if you noticed that — it might make it hard to call the Republicans “the party of the rich.”